Tuesday, 31 May 2016

How to live well in the Kingdom of God

Hebrews 13.1-3

Hebrews
13 is a familiar end-of-letter exhortation to its audience, to live the life
fully into which we have been invited by our Saviour Christ. When I preached on
this in Crowmarsh Gifford in August 2006, I prepared a sermon on verses 1-3 as a
manifesto for three kinds of love: mutual love, stranger-love, and love for the
marginalized.

MUTUAL
LOVE: Let mutual love continue - Ἡ φιλαδελφία μενέτω.This love
is ‘brotherly love’ in the Greek, and the NRSV doesn’t preserve the force of
the word. Love the family, love as sisters and brothers, love as those to whom
you belong, certainly. More importantly, love with the full knowledge of the
frailty and idiosyncrasies of those who are so close to you that you know them
warts and all. It’s unconditional love, but it’s not careless love. It cares
deeply that those we love are fractured, but it does not make love dependent on
change. It is patient love, love for the addict who can’t find a way out; love
for the sister who has wounded your life by a chance remark; love for the
brother who doesn’t know how to treat you with respect. It’s redeeming love,
because it frees those whom we love from the compulsion to prove themselves to
us.

STRANGER-LOVE:
Do not neglect to show hospitality to
strangers – The word used for hospitality -φιλοξενία – may be literally translated as love of strangers or of those who are
strange. The love theme continues! There is a further reminder that love for
others doubles up as love for God, and that one without the other is the
absurdity shown clearly in 1 John 4. Hospitality offered to humans may be
hospitality offered to God, and there are echoes for me of Abraham’s experience
in Genesis 18. Perhaps there is a supernatural dimension to all hospitality? We
find the unseen guest Christ makes himself known in the breaking of bread when
we make space at the table for strangers. Eucharistic strangers make the
Eucharist a sacramental miracle, and Christ presents himself in them too. Might
they, in a strange way, be some of the broken bread?

LOVE FOR
THOSE ON THE MARGINS: Remember those who
are in prison, as though you were in prison with them; those who are being
tortured, as though you yourselves were being tortured [μιμνῄσκεσθε τῶν δεσμίων ὡς συνδεδεμένοι]– the writer moves rapidly into more uncomfortable territory. We’ve been
asked to make space at the table for those who formally don’t belong. Now we’re
asked to go into inhospitable places, and make ourselves at home there, to be
‘in the flesh’ with them, as the text actually says. This is the core meaning
of ‘compassion’, which takes us beyond empathy to participation, one of the ways
of understanding what Christ means when he invites us to take up our cross. In
a comfortable, warm and fuzzy church setting with glorious music and rich
resources, it’s a challenge to remain uncomfortable and edgy ourselves.

Wednesday, 25 May 2016

This blog is a collection of Facebook posts in
2016. I will add to them from
Romans 12 and elsewhere in due course. For now, before I get into the detail, I
want to make some general marks about God’s gifts.

The first is that God gives varieties of gifts,
both to Christians and non-Christians. Here we are talking about gifts given to
the church, and to individuals within the church for the sake of the church.

1.Some of these gifts are naturally endowed:
birth gifts.

2.Some are learned skills: sweat of the brow
gifts.

3.Some are supernaturally endowed: I’m not sure
what to call these.

4.Some are a mixture of the 3 things above.

So we mustn’t separate out gifts that come from
God and gifts that come from ‘nature’. They are all God-given! Having said
that, let’s start in earnest.

λόγος σοφίας

This week I’m going to celebrate the gifts of
the Holy Spirit. Today: Wisdom, who speaks for herself in Proverbs 8. This is
the gift that Stephen had which gifted him to speak so eloquently when
appointed a deacon, and which led him to die for the truth he spoke.

“Ages ago I was
set up,

at the first,
before the beginning of the earth.

When there were
no depths I was brought forth,

when there were
no springs abounding with water....

...then I was
beside him, like a master worker;

and I was daily
his delight,

rejoicing before
him always,

rejoicing in his
inhabited world

and delighting in the human race.”

λόγος γνώσεως

The gift of knowledge is often trivialized as ‘a
word of knowledge’ in an act of worship, through which someone identifies a
person present who has a particular ailment or need. It may be that, but 1
Corinthians 12 uses the same word as 1 Corinthians 1, where ‘gnosis’
[knowledge] refers to the proclamation of Christ crucified. If I pray for this
gift, I am most likely praying for the Holy Spirit to grant me the ability to
teach and proclaim Christ our Saviour in a way that radically transforms the
lives of those who listen. What a gift to pray for!

πίστις

The third gift of the Holy Spirit in 1
Corinthians 12 is ‘faith’. This doesn’t refer to the faith that is common to
all who are in Christ. It is a specific way of living out of that faith that
touches the lives of others. Anthony Thiselton’s commentary says “Probably this
gift promotes an ebullient, robust, optimistic acceptance of God’s sovereign
love and mercy in such a way as to put heart into a troubled church in times of
uncertainty.” I love this, but would add that it is a faith that holds others in its embrace, encouraging and
enabling them to believe and hope when they are doubtful or spiritually weak.
Thirdly, it is a faith which excites, energizes and propels others into the
mission of God.

In the New Testament, Paul himself seems to me
to have this gift. In the history of the church, such people are sometimes
leaders but more often seem to be found among the ordinary, unnoticed,
faith-filled folk. The question to ask yourself today is, ‘Where do I see this
gift at work in our church?’

χαρίσματα ἰαμάτων

The fourth gift of the Holy Spirit in our list
is plural: gifts of healing.

1.These are gifts given for the building up of
the church; we do not ‘possess’ the gifts,
but we steward them. Some of us exercise the gifts of healing for a season, or
on one occasion only. Some are called to carry the gift as a central feature of
their Christian discipleship.

2.These
gifts are exercised in prayer. We ask for healing in the name of Jesus, and the
Spirit of Jesus responds graciously through us.

3.Healing
has a sacramental character. Laying hands on the sick and anointing them are
outward signs of the inward working of the grace of God. We who pray for the
sick are also outward signs of God’s inward grace.

4.The
healing miracles of Jesus were exercised in compassion. But they are also signs
of the end, when all will be well and there is no more pain. The church continues
this earthly ministry of Jesus, and in doing so, gives hope. Healing is partial
now; then it will be complete.

5.For
those who are in Christ, death is a healing journey, the entry point into the
eternity of God

ἐνεργήματα δυνάμεων

Gift 5 is the working of miracles, better
translated as works of power. If I pray for this gift, I am praying that God
will do powerful things in Jesus’ name through me. Those powerful things might
be dramatic, but they are just as likely to be hidden, quiet, behind the
scenes. The reconciliation of two factions in a church, the repairing of a
threatened marriage, a person restored from despair, another enabled to forgive
oppressors, these too are works of power. So if you desire and pray for this
gift, don’t pray for drama, pray for God to turn a little corner of the world
the right way up through you. If God chooses to act dramatically, that’s fine.
But to pray to be gifted with works of God’s power is to pray to be used
transformatively, not dramatically.

προφητεία

Continuing with our theme of the gifts of the
Spirit, prophecy comes next. There are some cautions here: if we call people
with a gift of prophecy 'prophets', we may unintentionally suggest [a] that
they are fortune-tellers or oracles; [b] that they are infallibly speaking with
the voice of God, as spokespersons, or [c] that they have high rank or status.
Perhaps that is why Paul doesn't describe such people as prophets here or in
Romans 12.

More positively, this is a gift of forthtelling rather than
foretelling: forthright speech to the church, calling it back to holy living,
active proclamation and costly service. Some sermons, undoubtedly, show this
gift at work. So does godly conversation, or wise books. And though in 1
Corinthians 12 the gift is 'for the church', prophecy may be addressed to
groups and nations as well as individuals. I for one, believe that Desmond Tutu
has been such a person (and of course that doesn't mean that I agree with all
that he says). I do believe that his words have on more than one occasion been
words forthtelling God's challenge to the church and to the society.

διακρίσεις πνευμάτων

The discernment of spirits is the next in our tour through
the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12. It is relatively easy to cut through the
thicket of opinions, perspectives and interpretations. To discern is to make a
decision about the rightness or wrongness of something, to discriminate in the
proper sense. As this is a gift of the Holy Spirit, this is an ability that is
God-given rather than reasoned or intuitive, though of course God uses those
faculties. What are the 'spirits'? They may be [a] the emotions and inner
forces that pull us towards or away from God [consolation or desolation]; [b]
the choices or claims we or others make in the name of God; and [c] actual evil
spirits, the 'the cosmic powers of this present darkness'. It is of course a
form of wisdom that we so desperately need in the church today. We always have
done.

γένη γλωσσῶν + ἑρμηνεία γλωσσῶν

The last two gifts in the list in 1 Corinthians
12 go together. Paul here is not talking about the personal and private use of
tongues, but about building up the church. Interestingly, in chapter 14, he
says that this is a sign for unbelievers. I remember the unbelieving husband of
a believing wife attending a service at which someone gave a message in
tongues, followed by an interpretation from another. His remark afterwards was
that this was the only thing that differentiated our church from the pub of
which he was landlord!

Put simply, tongues are here

1.addressed to God [14.2]: we ‘speak mysteries in the Spirit.’

2.addressed to God in the church.

3.addressed to God in the church for the sake of unbelievers.

It is as if unbelievers in church (are we
bringing them in?) are invited to eavesdrop on our worship in tongues. And the
interpreters must interpret what is happening, rather than what is being said.
Interpretation is ‘spiritual explanation.’

More
importantly, our worship must be ‘in many tongues’ – God-breathed, inspired,
ecstatic, supernatural, glorious praise, which does not dumb down. As we pray
for these gifts, we are praying for our praise to be risky, to be open to the
promptings of God, to be unbounded and unrestrained. It’s a prayer to ‘let God
loose in our praise.’

Wednesday, 18 May 2016

Several have asked me what an Ember card is. Ember Days are the four sets of three days in Advent, Lent, between Pentecost/Trinity and in September set aside for special prayer and fasting. They have become associated with times for ordination, as prayer and fasting are apt preparation. Nowadays, it is customary to pray for clergy and those to be ordained at Embertide. [Embers are, of course, ashes!]

So an Ember card is an ordination card, and many ordinations send them to family and friends to ask for prayer. In the way of the modern world, they have become very fancy, over-elaborate, and sometimes plain self-indulgent. They are not change of address cards.

I have copied one off the internet and put it below. If you choose to do this, all you really need to give people is where and when you are being ordained, and which ministry you will be serving in.